‘Dexterity is in your mind, not just in your fingers’ – 50 quotes from Indian startup journeys

From determination to dexterity, witness the memorable journey of Indian entrepreneurship in these quotes, excerpts and stories!

Launched in 2014, StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of this past week (see the previous post here). Share these 50 gems and insights from the week of January 14-20 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights. See also our compilation of Top 50 Quotes from 2018here.

Your time is best spent and you have the biggest chance for success if you have just a few products or one product to concentrate on. – George Mathew, Seekdefo

As an entrepreneur, hiring, nurturing and retaining talent is as important as building a business. - Deepak Sahni, Healthians

As the organisation matures and the leadership team matures, culture not only defines vision but ensures that the vision itself is aligned to the org culture both in articulation and execution. - Nandini Vaidyanathan, 'Entrepedia'

We all have a sphere of influence. It can be large if one is a public figure, but its power cannot be underestimated even if it is small enough to impact a few. - Vidya Shah, EdelGive Foundation

Angel investors who support innovation by making risky investments are incentivised in many countries but here in India they feel harassed. - iSPIRT, LocalCircles

The requirement of an investor having a returned income of at least Rs 50 lakh or a net worth of at least Rs 2 crore may, in many cases, be too big an ask for the friends-and-family round of angel investment and for small-budget investors. - Alok Patnia, Taxmantra

The next wave of innovation for India is being driven by the tech intensity of companies - how you combine rapid adoption of cutting edge tech with your company's own distinctive tech and business capabilities. - Anant Maheshwari, Microsoft India

Agriculture is evolving, with one boot firmly planted in the mud and one hand holding a mobile phone. The farmer is indeed at the epicentre of a digital agriculture revolution. - Manav Garg, Eka Software Solutions

The long-term solution is to ensure appropriate nutrition standards in the country through nutrition-rich food as well as the right interventions through education, sanitation, poverty alleviation, health. – T Madhusudhan Rao, Tata Trusts

A voice-based bot powered by artificial intelligence could help facilitate access to government services, such as utility bill payments, provident fund balance and income tax filings. - Virender Jeet, Newgen Software

When chatbots first came, there was a lot of hype. Everyone thought they were building the next Jarvis and the world would be AI-powered. But that didn’t happen. - Aakrit Vaish, Haptik

Users want to have conversations even if it’s with the internet. And a conversation that happens in regular language instead of codified commands makes for a much better experience. - Mihir Mohan, Pitstop

Despite the fact that 95 percent of the workforce and 90 percent of construction costs reside on the project site, almost all existing enterprise applications for construction cater to the office environment. - Roby Kurien, QwikSpec

With the enactment of Biometrics technology, the digital financial transaction system can be cast to become more secure, trusted, user-friendly, affordable, stable and advanced. - Rutva Safi, Mantra Softech India

Online SaaS startups can market to, acquire, onboard, and service a larger number of customers with fewer resources than offline SaaS startups. This makes online SaaS a more scalable approach. - Adam Walker, Montane Ventures

The future of technology is not merely a matter of manipulating what is known in the world of science into new kinds of products. - David Hanson

There’s content out there with an intentionally wrong motive, technically labelled as disinformation as well as misinformation, which is just wrong content. - Vasudeva Varma, IIIT-Hyderabad

Design is niche, yet it is increasingly seen as a game changer. Design education, design-led creative manufacturing, and design-led startups are the top three opportunities for designers in India. - Ashish Deshpande, ADI

Design is a network builder, driver of collaborative creativity, and voice of the company to the customer. - Kevin Gilboe, 3M

YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple,Android).